


Maybe if You'd Seen the Soft Pink Light

by mrsbarlow



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Autumnal angst & fluff, F/F, Rule 63, Women in the NHL, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-15 00:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21024503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsbarlow/pseuds/mrsbarlow
Summary: Getting drunk with your sort-of ex is probably not the best idea, generally speaking, but Willy’s had a pretty shit day and if she has to be around men for even a minute longer, she might break someone’s jaw. So she figures she deserves a pass when she finds herself standing in the doorway of Kyle’s office after the game.





	Maybe if You'd Seen the Soft Pink Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just lesbian angst & tropes wrapped up in fun fall activities, because those are my personal three favourite things. Happy Thanksgiving :) 
> 
> Title from Pink Light by MUNA

Getting drunk with your sort-of ex is probably not the best idea, generally speaking, but Willy’s had a pretty shit day and if she has to be around men for even a minute longer, she might break someone’s jaw. So she figures she deserves a pass when she finds herself standing in the doorway of Kyle’s office after the game.

The door is open and Kyle is at her desk, but she’s all wide-eyed and focused on some spreadsheet or something, glasses slipping down her nose. She looks up when Willy does the awkward half knock on the doorframe thing. 

“Oh,” Kyle says, surprise clear in her voice and on her face. “Willy.” Her dark brown hair is pulled back into a bun that was probably neat and perfect this morning but has since fallen into disarray with loose strands everywhere. She’s got the sleeves of her blue, button-up blouse pushed up, and it’s kind of embarrassing honestly how much that catches Willy off guard for a minute. 

“Hey,” Willy says. She rocks back and forth on her heels. “What’s up?”

“Oh, you know, just…stuff.”

Willy rolls her eyes. “Stuff? Name one stuff.”

Kyle frowns. “Um, proposals based on the new cap projection? I have a meeting with—”

“Oh my god, Kyle, it was a _New Girl_ reference. I could not care less about your numbers meeting. No offence.”

“_New Girl,_” Kyle muses, clearly trying to remember if this was something she should know. “The one about the teacher with the bangs and the roommates.”

“Zooey Deschanel, your cute glasses twin, yes.”

“Must not have stuck with me.”

“Of course not, why would it? It’s not the on the history channel.”

“What can I help you with, Willy?” Kyle asks, pointedly ignoring her last comment.

Willy hesitates because, really, she’s still not quite sure why she’s here, not quite sure what she wants. All she knows is that she feels like hot garbage from their loss and the two goals that were probably her fault. If she went for drinks with the guys she’d probably ending up breaking her glass over one of their heads, and if she has to speak to one more reporter or hear one more pissed off fan say shit about women in the NHL, she’ll use one of her skates as a boxing glove. Not that Willy advocates for violence, like, generally.

“Willy?” Kyle prompts. She actually closes her laptop, so Willy knows she’s got her attention now. “If this is about the game or the media tonight—”

“Yeah, it is actually.”

“Sure, of course. Why don’t you have a seat and we can—”

“Do you want to go get drunk with me?” Willy interrupts.

Kyle blinks. “Um.”

“Like, if you’re not busy. If your documents and stuff can wait.”

“You want to go to a bar? Right now? With me?”

Willy shrugs. Kyle looks down at her closed laptop, at the papers scattered absolutely everywhere. She looks at the half-eaten salad and bag of Miss Vicky’s chips that had been her half-assed dinner and grimaces. She looks at Willy standing in her office doorway, short hair still wet from her shower, leaning casually against the wall in her game-day suit.

“Yeah,” she says finally. “Yeah, why not. Let’s go.”

“Sweet. I’ll get a cab. Meet me outside in ten.”

So. This is probably a horrendous idea, but since the league refuses to hire more than a handful of female players and a single female GM, Willy’s options for gal pal solidarity are…limited. And anyway, she tells herself as she waits for Kyle out front of the arena, things between them are perfectly fine, perfectly civil, decently friendly, and almost completely not-awkward. It was barely a thing. It was barely a brief few weeks. Willy barely had any feelings about it at the time and it would be absurd for her to have any feelings about it now. So it’s fine. The whole thing is very, completely Fine.

***

It was barely a thing, but it was still a thing. Willy’s pretty good at not letting Things get to her. It’s about focus, really, and turning that focus somewhere else, somewhere less risky than feelings and Kyle and especially Feelings For Kyle. Willy is good at focusing, and that’s maybe why she made it this far without cracking.

Willy is generally very good at not letting Things get to her, but sometimes they still do. Sometimes she still hears the reporter’s voice in her head, asking Kyle whether she thought it was really a smart business decision to engage in such a close relationship with a player. Sometimes she still feels nauseous when she thinks about the silence between them after, in the car, stopped at longest red light of Willy’s life. Sometimes she still sees Kyle’s face when Willy got out of the car, how sad she looked, how tired. Sometimes she can’t stop herself from replaying the conversation in her head, over and over. _I just don’t see how it can work, Willy. The last thing either of us need is more shit in the media about women in sports letting their emotions cloud their judgement, not to mention the kind of garbage they’ll say about us being queer. _

Willy doesn’t take it personally. She mostly does not lie awake at night wondering whether if she’d done something different, if things would have worked out. It was business. It was their careers. It was the logical, sensible, appropriate, absolutely right decision. It was, in Kyle’s exact words, _just a bad situation. _She doesn’t dwell on it, channels all of that energy into hockey instead, and until tonight it had been working pretty well for her. Everyone slips once in a while.

***

The bar is weirdly empty for a Saturday night, only a handful of groups and couples scattered around the tables. Kyle points to a spot near the back.

“Sure you don’t want the table?” Willy asks.

“What, so you can bitch about not having a booth?”

“I’m being _polite _because I know that you prefer tables.”

“I’m fine with the booth. Cozier.”

Willy laughs without meaning to. Some kind of weird knee jerk reaction to thinking about being cozy with Kyle. Whatever. She needs a drink.

Kyle orders a gin and tonic and Willy gets a margherita. She leans back against the cool leather of the booth and closes her eyes.

She can feel Kyle watching her for a while. “You okay?”

“I’ve been better.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“I didn’t ask you here for a heart to heart.” It comes out harsher than she intended. “That’s not what I meant,” she says quickly, catching Kyle’s taken aback expression. It’s just been a bad night.”

“Bad nights happen.”

“Tell that to the guy who yelled at me to get my hormones in check on my way off the ice. Or Toronto media. Or all of Twitter, actually.”

“Willy.”

“Sorry, sorry. No heart to heart. This isn’t like a shoulder to cry on thing.”

Kyle doesn’t say anything, but the question hangs in the air anyway. _What kind of thing is this then?_

“Is this weird?” Willy asks, fiddling with her sleeve.

Kyle's eyebrows perk up. “Oh. Um, maybe a little?”

“Did I make it weird by asking if it was weird?”

She laughs nervously. “Maybe.”

“Oops.”

“Not to be rude, but what did you invite me for? I’m not exactly your go to drinking buddy these days.”

“My go to drinking buddies are getting smashed in another bar and probably talking shit about me right now.”

“That’s not true,” Kyle says.

“Sure.”

“Mo wouldn’t talk shit.”

“Very reassuring.”

“They’re your team. They’re with you. Everyone has shitty games once in while.”

“So you think I had a shitty game, huh?” Willy teases. “That’s pretty fucking rude, Dubas.”

“I call it like I see it.”

“Bet your team loves that.”

“Ohhh yes, nothing but love for me at the office.”

It’s easy, Willy thinks, sitting here with Kyle just talking. As easy as she remembers. It’s nice. It feels good. She’s just…here. She’s not on her guard, she’s not faking it, she’s not Willy NylanderTM. Her shoulders are sore from the game and also maybe from carrying the constant weight of being the only woman on the Leafs and everything that comes with that. She lets them slump now.

“Okay so I didn’t invite you here for a deep heart to heart, but I did maybe invite you here to vent. If you want. I feel like you also have things to vent about. Just, like, taking a guess.”

“Pretty good guess, yeah.”

“Not many people get it, but you do.”

“Get what?”

“You know. Being a woman in the NHL. Like, yeah it’s revolutionary and a great opportunity and a huge step forward and the honour of a lifetime and all that but it’s also kind of bullshit a lot of the time.”

Their drinks arrive. Willy keeps rambling. “I mean, it would maybe be okay if it wasn’t just me, on the Leafs I mean. But they’ve only got like ten of us to begin with and they spread us as thin as they possibly could.”

“Thin as ice, you might say.”

“Very funny, Kyle.”

“You don’t talk to them? The other girls?”

“Well, yeah, of course I do, but we’re hours and time zones away and only see each other for games and maybe once or twice in the off season. There’s only so much a group chat can do. Sometimes you need someone actually _there, _like physically, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“It’s just—the guys are great, for the most part. Kappy’s somehow my best friend and that’s just, I don’t even understand how that’s possible but it is, and Mo loves to go on his rants about feminism and social justice after like one drink, which is nice and I appreciate it but he still doesn’t get it. Pasta just sends me memes about like gritty and gay rights and shit. I don’t know.”

“It’s confusing,” Kyle shrugs.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is. See? You get that.”

“I do get that. It’s different, but I get it.”

“Different how?”

Kyle shrugs again, eyes focused on the table. “I don’t know. Same message, different delivery. Overnight shipping versus carrier pigeon.”

Willy almost spits out her drink, laughing. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Kyle’s mouth twitches a little bit like she’s trying not to smile. “For you it’s all like physical ability and emotion. They pick apart everything you do. They take one sloppy pass or one missed shot, a penalty or even your expression in your post game. It’s immediate and you can’t catch a break. Whatever you do, the next minute someone’s giving you shit for it.”

“Overnight shipping. Okay. Sure, gotcha.”

“For me it’s more of a back and forth process, more drawn out.”

“_Trust the process,_” Willy says in her best imitation of Kyle’s deep, somewhat gravely voice.

“Yes, well, it might surprise you to know that most of the stupid fucking rich white men I work with do not, in fact, trust my process.”

“A shocking turn of events.”

“It’s just this never-ending barrage of insults and degradations carefully coated in business talk. They can’t even begin to fathom that a woman could be in a position of such significant financial power, let alone for one of the biggest sports franchises in the world. I’m a PR placement to them. ‘Leafs hire first female GM in NHL history’. I’m a headline and a photo-op, and they have a hard enough time wrapping their balding heads around that before I take my seat at the head of the table in meetings and give them the numbers—which they still question and triple check in front of me.”

“Carrier pigeons that are constantly shitting on you, fun.”

“Messy, exhausting, and constantly hovering.”

“I guess you don’t exactly have any other lady GM friends to call and yell with after a bad day.”

“Don’t really have too many friends period, actually,” Kyle mumbles, “not since I moved here, anyway. Most of them are still back home or scattered around since school.”

“Oh,” Willy says. She feels like she should say more. What exactly do you say when someone tells you they don’t have friends? She probably shouldn’t just yell _me neither! _Right? That would be making it about her and not, like, good listening or whatever.

“God, that’s so pathetic, I don’t know why I said that.” Kyle’s cheeks burn red and she downs her glass in a hurry. She coughs a little. “I swear as much as I’ve just complained, my life is not miserable. I genuinely enjoy my job and don’t just live in a cave of blankets in my apartment when I’m not at work.”

“You have such good blankets for blanket caves, though.”

“Well, there may be the occasional blanket cave.”

“I don’t really have a lot of girl friends either. As in like, friends that are girls,” Willy clarifies, “not like _girlfriends. _Not that I have many of those either. Or any. I have none of those. Unfortunately.”

Kyle raises her eyebrows. “No? You don’t have like sixteen girlfriends waiting on your call?”

“I spend all my time with obnoxiously straight men, Kyle, that tends to send women running very far away from me.”

“Nah, you’ve got fans,” she smirks. “Not all the tweets about you are bad.”

“Shut up.”

Willy’s wearing contacts but the bar is all warm and hazy. She doesn’t feel quite so shitty anymore.

“This is nice,” she hiccups. “We should hang out again. If you want, I mean, as friends. Since apparently neither of us really have many of those.”

“Yeah?” Kyle says. She sounds surprised. A little hopeful too, maybe.

“Yeah,” Willy says. “This was nice. This was good. It’s good to let it out sometimes and also just be around other women. Maybe things don’t have to be weird between us, you know?”

“Definitely don’t need to be weird between us.”

“Right, exactly. This was fine. This was great.”

“So great.”

“Cool, so let’s do it again then?”

“That would be fun.”

“We could like go to karaoke or have study sessions together or whatever friends do.”

“I don’t sing and you definitely don’t study.”

“I’ll have you know I’m halfway through my second book this year.”

“Willy, it’s October.”

“I haven’t read a book in like four years, Kyle, let me have this.”

“Well, I did sing in the car on the way to work this morning, but I’m gonna have to be a little more drunk to try Karaoke.”

“That’s the spirit. Not tonight though. As much as I desperately want to see you sing Celine Dion or Alanis Morrisette or some other Canadian karaoke classic, I’m gonna pass the fuck out in like six minutes.”

“I’ll never understand how you can literally sleep anywhere. For someone who whines about sheet thread count, you sure can make a decent bed out of a barstool and suit jacket.”

Willy rolls her eyes and flags down the bartender for the bill. “I missed your attitude, Dubas.”

***

Willy doesn’t text Kyle when she gets home to say she had a fun time because she already said that at the bar and also that’s something people on dates do and they weren’t on a date. She doesn’t text her the next day, either, and ask her to hang out because this is a casual thing, them being friends, and they should probably not rush into it. They rushed into things last time and then suddenly there were no more things to rush into.

So. Willy waits. Kyle waits, too. Which is fine, because Kyle is, generally, a very bad texter and also Willy is very calm and chill about this very calm and chill, casual friends thing.

She hangs around after their next practice, takes her time in the locker room until everyone else is gone before ducking out and sneaking up to the offices. She peaks her head around Kyle’s door. She’s on the phone, but her expression brightens when she sees Willy in the doorway, which Willy takes as invitation to flop on her couch until she’s done with her call.

Kyle comes by midway through their practice the next day and gives Willy a cheery wave which nearly makes her crash in Freddie.

“You good?” he asks, giving her his very serious, generally expressionless Concerned Freddie Look.

“Yeah,” she scoffs, grabbing the net for balance. “Totally good. Just distracted. Sorry bud.”

He gives her the smallest sliver of a grin which is about as much emotion as he ever shows. “Uh huh. Watch out for those distractions, Will.”

She skates away and ignores the flip flopping in her stomach.

So it’s gradual and it’s nothing big, just Willy hanging out in Kyle’s office when she has a free hour. She brings coffee usually and sometimes take out and they sit on the floor and eat, even though Kyle has multiple chairs and a perfectly good couch and more than one table.

It’s Kyle stopping by practices or sending Willy a bunch of bad memes and rant texts after long meetings.

It’s Willy texting Kyle as soon as she finishes reading _How to be Both _because yeah, sure, Willy doesn’t read a lot but she’s genuinely never been so confused by a book in her life.

_Its literally called how to be both, kyle, i thought it was gonna be about being bi?? Like???_

_I mean, it kind of is._

_The girl or the painter??_

_…both._

_Hilarious. I didn’t understand a single thing that happened _

_Maybe if you went to an art gallery some time, you’d know what a fresco is._

_Is it bad that my first thought was the grocery store?? Like freshco? _

_Yes. Yes that is bad.  
Please read another book, this is a good learning experience for you._

_Give me one of your books, you have so many books _

_Any book?_

_Ummm not like a big one or a really old one_  
_No classics_  
_ I don’t wanna read the dick guy_

_I hate that I don’t know if you’re talking about Dickens or Freud._

_Give me a romance i love romance_

_Really, I never would have guessed._

_💅_

***

Willy loves dogs, too. She tried to convince Kappy to get one once. when they still lived together.

“No,” he’d said, flat out.

“Why not? You love dogs. We would be great dog parents, Kasu.”

“We travel all the time, Willy.”

“So do Mitch and JT and they have dogs.”

“They also have girlfriends or wives? Which you…don’t.”

“Okay, rude, not like your love life is soooo stable.”

“Which is why we shouldn’t get a dog.”

“Don’t blame our hypothetical dog for your relationship issues.”

“We’re not getting a dog.”

She had pouted and huffed and trailed through their apartment wailing like an old lady in a haunted house but Kappy had ignored her and so there was no dog.

But Mitch has a dog, and today Mitch has to go out of town unexpectedly for some family thing.

“Wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate, bro. Zeus is just so little still? He’s not used to being alone for so long? He just needs to be walked and fed and maybe cuddled. He likes cuddles. Steph’s coming with me and Auston’s too busy sitting at home, like, brooding or whatever, so I’m kinda stuck.”

“I’ve got it, Mitchy, relax. Zeus and I are best friends. Remember when he fell asleep on my foot and tried to eat my toes in his sleep? Best friends.”

“Gross. You have weird foot stuff with all your friends?”

“Not with you and your gross feet,” Willy chirps, lazily. “Drop off keys on your way out and I’ll go by this afternoon.”

She’s barely ended the call before she’s pulling up Kyle’s number and dialling.

“Hello? Willy?”

“Hiiiii, what are you doing today?”

“Well, it’s Sunday so—”

“Let me guess, you’re reading a book.”

Willy can practically hear Kyle roll her eyes. “An article actually, but yeah okay, go ahead and laugh.”

“What if you left your article for later and instead came on a dog walk in the park with me?”

“You have a dog? Since when do you have a dog?”

“Mitch’s dog. I’m dog sitting.”

“Oh, the small chocolate lab puppy?” Kyle’s voice goes all soft. Willy bounces a little on her feet.

“Yes, the very cute very small chocolate lab puppy. Come with us?”

“It is nice out today. I think. From my window it looks nice.”

“Fresh air is good sometimes, Kyle. Leaving your office and also your couch and breathing outside air increases life expectancy. It’s also kind of important for making friends.”

“Something you’re an expert on?”

“Me? Me who is right now on the phone inviting you, Kyle, outside to hang out and be social like friends do? Yes, I guess you could call me an expert.”

Kyle laughs through the phone. Willy hears what sounds like a kettle bubbling and clicking off. “Come on, it’s such a perfect fall day! There’s leaves on the ground in the parks and it’s cold but not freezing yet. I’ll bring coffee in reusable cups.”

“Very environmentally friendly of you.”

“There is no planet B, Kyle.”

“You’re ridiculous. Where should I meet you?”

“High Park in an hour. I’ll wear a bright scarf so you can see me.”

“You do love a good scarf.”

“I’ll bring one for you, too. See you soon.”

She hangs up and flops down on her bed, kicking her feet in her sheets a little because she’s too angsty to lie completely still, but Willy loves a good flop as much as she loves a good scarf.

***

Kyle’s waiting for her under a particularly large maple tree. She’s wearing jeans and boots and a grey Brock hoodie. Zeus barrels straight towards her so that Willy has to run along to keep up with him.

“Hi,” she says, breathless. “Sorry we’re late.”

“Don’t see how, this little guy seems like he’s in a rush.” Kyle ducks down to pet Zeus. He nuzzles his face in her sweater as she flops his ears around. Willy kind of feels like she might die.

“Um. Coffee’s in the bag,” Willy says, to distract herself mostly. “If you wanna grab it?”

“Oh! Yeah sure.” Kyle unzips the little backpack and pulls out the two travel mugs, passes one to Willy. Her hands are cold.

“There’s extra gloves in there too, if you want.”

“That’s okay. That’s what big sweaters are for.” Kyle grins and tucks her hands into her sleeves.

“Very cute.”

Zeus is pulling at his leash and barking wildly at the falling leaves, so they set off. The sun has disappeared behind some clouds and it’s the kind of cold, foggy, little bit gloomy fall day Willy loves most. The air smells like leaves and rain, and everything is sort of dull and muted except for the fiery bright trees.

“I missed this last year,” she sighs.

“Missed what?”

“This. Fall. Walks in the park, the trees changing, cold misty mornings, Halloween. Hockey. All of it really.”

“They don’t have fall in Europe?”

“It’s not the same.”

“No,” Kyle agrees, “it isn’t. Fall in the city is nice.”

“There’s just so many fun fall things to do, you know? Like yeah walks are nice, but there’s spooky movies, Halloween candy and costumes, pumpkin spice everything, pumpkin patches and corn mazes. I want to do them all this year. This will be the year of fall!” She shouts the last part, throwing her arms wide and twirling. She ends up getting stuck in Zeus’s leash and he gives her a look, like she’s messing up his walking plans. Kyle snorts and helps untangle her.

“Fall looks good on you, I’ll give you that.”

“Every season looks good on me, Kyle.”

“Always modest.”

“Fall looks nice on you too. You look like you should be tucked up under a tree with a flannel blanket and a big stack of books. Like Rory when she goes to Yale in _Gilmore Girls_.”

“Hmm, yeah. _Dracula_, Le Fanu, some Poe maybe.”

“See? You’re getting into the fall mood.”

“I love fall,” Kyle says, defensive. “I happen to love a good period drama and my grandma’s thanksgiving stuffing.”

“Mmm stuffing.”

“You should make a fall bucket list.”

Willy gasps and clutches Kyle’s arm. “I should! We could do so many fun fall things!”

“We?”

“Duh. I don’t want to go to a corn maze alone, that’s how people die, and there’s no way I’m gonna go with Auston or Kappy. They’ll just whine about how cold they are or not having wifi the whole time.”

“You hate not having wifi.”

“Yes, but I have a reliable data plan _and _I like to live in the moment. The fall moment.”

“I could go for a pumpkin patch. It’s been a while since I’ve carved pumpkins.”

“Yes, Kyle, yes! And spooky movies? Fall baking?”

“You can bake?”

“We’ll figure it out, I’m sure.”

“You watch horror movies?”

“Not horror, just spooky. _Halloweentown, Coraline_, a feel good _Charlie Brown_ maybe.”

“I do love Charlie Brown.”

Zeus stops to flop and flail in a leaf pile next to a bench and he doesn’t seem interested in moving any time soon. Kyle and Willy sit on the bench and watch his little paws kick and dig and cause all sorts of mayhem.

“I can’t believe a year ago you weren’t here,” Kyle says after a minute. “It feels so long ago.”

“Yeah,” Willy sighs, quiet. “Switzerland doesn’t feel that long ago, though. That was fun.”

“Most fun business trip I’ve had,” Kyle grins. After a moment she adds, “I’m glad you’re back now though. I’m glad things worked out.”

“Me too. Thanks for the paycheck, dude.”

Kyle rolls her eyes. “Nice.”

Willy grins and nudges her playfully. “Seriously, though. I know you took a lot of shit for that.”

“No more than you did for asking for it.”

“Yes, well, gotta live up to my spoiled rich brat reputation somehow.”

“You deserve to get paid for your career.”

“I know. I’m teasing.”

“Okay. I just want you know that I don’t regret it.” Kyle isn’t looking at her, she’s watching Zeus digging an enormous hole next to the bench, flinging mud and sticks everywhere. “It was important to me that you didn’t settle for less just because everyone thought you were being greedy. Because you’re a rich brat or because you’re a woman, whichever.”

“Oh so you think I’m a rich brat, too, huh?”

“Willy.”

“Kyle,” she replies, serious, then brushes a stray leaf out of Kyle’s dark hair. “I know. And thank you. Really. It means a lot.”

“Okay. Just as long as you know.” She takes the leaf Willy plucked from her hair and blows it away, as if she were making a wish on a dandelion fluff.

***

They leave before lunch because Springridge Farm is an hour drive with no traffic, and it’s a Sunday in Toronto so it takes nearly that long to even get onto the Gardiner.

As soon as Willy’s in the car Kyle hands her the aux cord. “Fall playlist immediately please.”

“You assume I have a designated fall playlist.”

“Do you?”

“Of course. Did you bring snacks?”

“There’s a café at the farm, figured we grab something there.”

“Oohh I hope they have apple cider. And donuts. Most pumpkin farms sell donuts, right?”

“Do you think I would have chosen a place that didn’t sell cinnamon sugar donuts, Willy? Give me a little credit.”

Willy sighs happily and rolls down her window.

“What are you doing? It’s freezing.”

“I’m breathing in the sweet fall air, Kyle.”

“We’re not even out of downtown yet.”

“Yes, but soon we will be in the country, the rolling hills and sweet fresh nature air.”

“Does Milton really count as the country?”

“You,” Willy huffs, giving Kyle a sharp look, “are being a spoilsport.”

Kyle rolls her eyes and signals to change lanes. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll try to save it until the tractor ride, at least.”

Willy’s jaw drops. “Umm, shut up. There’s a _tractor ride_? Kyle!!”

“Four trips throughout the day, take your pick.”

“We are going to have the _most _autumnal day. Everyone should and shall be extremely jealous of us.”

“My grandma especially. I’ve been instructed to pick up about eight hundred apples for her to make pies at Thanksgiving next weekend.”

“I know I’ve never actually met your grandma, but I love her.”

Kyle smiles. “You would. She’s a hoot.”

“Together we would be two hoots.”

Willy’s generally not great with long car rides. She gets antsy, doesn’t like sitting still for too long. The stop and go of traffic makes her feel a little nauseous and she always has to pee. Cars are always either too warm or too cold and they start to smell bad about three seconds in usually, although maybe that’s because she’s usually travelling with a bunch of guys or her entire enormous family. But as road trips go, this one is pretty good. Kyle likes the car cold but Willy’s bundled up in sweaters and the sun is shining through her window at the perfect angle. Kyle doesn’t smell like a sweaty boy, and she has a lovely pine air freshener stuck to the dashboard. Traffic is bad, because it’s always bad, but soon they are driving past rolling fields full of cows and horses and changing trees. Ben Howard and The Staves are playing softly and Willy sings along while Kyle taps her fingers on the steering wheel and chimes in whenever she knows a random lyric.

Willy can’t quite keep herself from sneaking glances at Kyle every once in a while. She looks like a fall fairy, Willy thinks, with her dark hair braided over her shoulder, her nails painted red, and her cable knit sweater. Willy makes a mental note to look for a fall leaf crown or something at the farm gift shop, because the colours would probably bring out Kyle’s eyes.

They get to the farm just after one. It’s completely packed with students and families, young kids bundled up in winter coats, rainbow hats and boots so heavy they look like they logically should just tip right over.

Willy bounces excitedly in her seat as Kyle pulls into one of the last free spots. Bright orange pumpkins are sprawled across the grass, some of them bigger than the toddlers trying desperately to pick them up. Beyond them a giant, friendly-looking scarecrow marks the entrance to the corn maze. There’s a small pond to their right and a tractor hooked up to a wagon sitting next to it. The barn is at the centre, with tables of fresh picked apples, home baked goods, and tiny decorative gourds set up outside the main doors.

“So,” Kyle grins, stepping out of the car and smirking at Willy’s delighted expression. “What should we do first?”

“Tractor ride. Definitely tractor ride.”

“Good call, looks like they’re picking up passengers now.”

Willy and Kyle join the crowd by the big red wagon hooked up to tractor. Once a bunch of parents have hoisted their kids on, Willy scrambles up and reaches back to give Kyle a hand. She takes it, maybe a little hesitantly, and Willy helps pull her into the wagon.

“Whoa!” Kyle yelps, clutching Willy’s hand tightly as she stumbles on the ledge.

“I’ve got you,” Willy says.

The wagon is stacked with hay bales. Willy plops herself onto one near the back and pats the spot beside for her Kyle.

“I’m surprised you’re willing to sit on hay with that coat on,” Kyle teases. “What did it cost you, like nine hundred dollars?”

“Of course not,” Willy scoffs, “Only like, four hundred, which is really not that bad. A good fall coat is important, Kyle.”

“Sure.”

“But,” she adds, holding up a hand for dramatic effect. “A good fall coat is also well loved. What is the point in a fall coat if you can’t wear said coat to do fall activities? Right?”

“So right, yeah.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m always laughing at you. You make me laugh.”

“Good,” Willy says. “I like making you laugh.”

Something in Kyle’s expression changes, and she opens her mouth to say something, but she’s cut off by the tractor rumbling to a start. Willy lets out a little squeal and clutches Kyle’s arm. A dozen four-year-olds follow suit, bouncing up and down and shouting with glee.

“I can’t believe you’re this excited over a tractor,” Kyle mutters, but she’s smiling.

“Spoilsport,” Willy grumbles back.

***

Time slips away faster than Willy expected. She wishes she could grab Kyle’s fancy watch and take the batteries out, make time stop, and keep them lost in this really very confusing corn maze forever.

But soon it’s past three, and the farm closes at five. Soon Kyle can’t keep pretending she didn’t figure out the maze in the first five minutes, and she leads the way through the tall stalks of corn to the exit. Soon the sun is getting lower in the sky and the air is getting colder and Kyle’s cheeks are flushed red, her eyes warm and bright in the setting sun, and Willy’s cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much.

They pick their pumpkins—Willy’s a perfectly round one nearly the size of Kappy’s beanbag chair, and Kyle’s a small knobbly one no bigger than Willy’s helmet.

“Aw, it’s a dorky pumpkin, just like you!” Willy tells her.

“If it weren’t so heavy, I might throw it at your head,” Kyle fires back.

“Just put your glasses on it for a second. Just for a second, Kyle, come on. I won’t even take a picture, I promise, I just need to remember this.”

“You’re going to take a picture.”

“I would never.”

Willy takes a picture. She takes a bunch, actually, has been taking them sneakily throughout the day. One of Kyle with her braid going all wispy in the wind on the tractor ride. One of Kyle looking very seriously at their map in the corn maze. A selfie of the two of them with the giant scarecrow. A couple standing near them offers to take their picture with their pumpkins and Willy passes them her phone. They both grunt as they hoist their pumpkins in their arms. Willy holds hers like a baby and Kyle lifts hers above her head, all strong and showing off.

Standing close and still while the lady takes the picture, Willy’s distracted by so many things at once: how cold her toes are, how muddy her pumpkin is making her expensive fall coat, how the wind is whipping Kyle’s braid all over the place, the way Kyle smells like pine and her lavender shampoo and a little bit like hay which is maybe weird but mostly really nice. She is very distracted by how close they are standing and how warm Kyle’s hip is pressed against hers.

“There you go,” the lady says, handing back the phone, and the moment’s over.

“Come on,” Kyle says. “Let’s get these in the car and then go in for some coffee before we leave. We’ve still got a bit before they close. Traffic will be bad no matter when we leave, anyway.”

The café is jam packed but they get through the line pretty quick with their coffee orders, strudel and donuts in hand.

“I can’t believe we literally came all this way to this pumpkin patch and adorable café and you’re drinking the same boring coffee you always do,” Willy chirps as Kyle stirs one milk and one sugar into her coffee.

“I know what I like,” Kyle says simply.

“Yeah, boring coffee and math.”

“I like not having rotting holes in my teeth, too.”

“Oh my god, Kyle,” Willy rolls her eyes. “One latte is not going to make your teeth fall out. That’s what dentists are for. I bet you’re a regular at your dentist office. Bet the receptionist knows you by name and everything.”

“She does, actually, and she says I have very charming smile,” Kyle replies airily, looking around for a free table.

“Oh, there!” Willy points. “Quick, by the window!”

They push and squeeze their way through, dropping tiredly into two tiny chairs at an even smaller square table right in the front corner by the window. Willy can’t move her chair even an inch without knocking the person behind her out of his chair, and Kyle is squashed up against the wall, and the table is very short so their knees knock against it and each other, but the whole set up is very cozy. Rain has started drizzling down again outside, and the whole café is lit with warm, colourful lanterns and filled with the smell of cinnamon and apple cider.

“Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a place like this. Small town, a bunch of fields, nice neighbours, a pumpkin patch, maybe a few cows.”

“You’d be a terrible farmer. You hate waking up early,” Kyle points out.

“Well, my handsome farm husband, Dave, would tend to the cows and the fields in the morning. I’d do other stuff. In the afternoon.”

“I’m sure Dave would love this arrangement. Him running around chasing chickens and hauling pumpkins while you lounged by your fireplace and gossiped with neighbours all day.”

“Yes, my handsome farm husband, Dave, is a wonderful man. Very handy. Very busy. Loves the fields. Practically never home, actually.”

Kyle laughs. “How convenient for you.”

“Not sure what you’re implying,” Willy says innocently, sipping her drink. It makes her feel warm all over. “What about you?”

“What about me what?” Kyle asks. She picks at the paper holder around her coffee cup.

“You know, that small-town-home-neighbourly feeling. Away from the city. You ever miss it?”

“Sometimes,” she admits. “When it’s close to holidays especially, or if shit’s bad at work. Small towns have their fair share of, um, conservative people, but sometimes after listening to white men bitch about absurd amounts of money all day, you just want a quick sidewalk chat with Kathleen from next door to hear about her grandkids or whether her cat is still having hip problems, you know?”

Willy smiles, wraps her hands around her cup. “Yeah, I know. Think you’d ever move back?”

Kyle shrugs. “Not really in the cards for me, not if I want to keep my job, at least. Maybe I’ll move back when I’m old and retired. Like that show you used to watch. What’s it called? The house hunting one?”

“Escape to the Country?” Willy pipes up eagerly. “Kyle, it’s the best show, you should definitely go on Escape to the Country when you’re old.”

“I’m sure you’d be right behind me the whole way going on and on about garden size and an annex for a furniture workshop and whether there’s any local barn conversions nearby we could take a look at.”

“I _knew _you watched it. I knew you were secretly paying attention.”

“It was hard to ignore. You never stopped yelling at the TV.”

“They picked the wrong, house, Kyle. They obviously should have picked the mystery house, it was perfect, they had literally just rethatched the roof, they didn’t need to change anything! They—” she breaks off when she realizes Kyle is laughing at her. Not grinning or a small giggle but fully laughing, drink abandoned on the table, hand over her mouth, warm brown eyes all scrunched up. Willy kind of just stares, amazed. It’s been a while since she’s seen Kyle laugh like this. She forgot how nice her laugh sounds, how cute she looks she when she’s genuinely happy, not a rehearsed publicity smile, but the real thing.

“I can’t believe you think I’m the dork here,” Kyle says after she’s calmed down. “You’re so—”

“Oh no,” Willy says, “be very careful about how you finish that sentence, Kyle Dubas. You have a two-hour drive home with me still.”

That sobers her up pretty quick. They’re quiet for a moment, just sitting at their rickety table, knees touching, families buzzing about Halloween plans around them. Outside, the sun is starting to go down and the sky is a dusky purple over the cornfields. It’s the kind of fall evening that _looks _cold.

For no reason all, Willy is tempted to ask if Kyle wants to do the corn maze one last time with her before they leave. It would be beautiful with the sky like this, maybe a little bit spooky in the dark. It would probably be just the two of them out there now.

She doesn’t ask Kyle to do the corn maze again. Instead she holds out her drink. “Want a sip?”

Kyle makes a face. “Of that whipped cream monstrosity? No thanks.”

“Come onnnnn, try it! It’s good. You won’t hate it that much, I promise. It’s like, barely even sweet.”

Kyle gives Willy a look that is essentially calling her a liar, but she takes the cup anyway. She feels like her heart has jumped into her throat when she goes to take a sip and sees the soft pink lipstick print on the mouth of the cup. It’s the smallest, tiniest fraction of an absolutely nothing, but Kyle is so distracted by her mouth touching the same place Willy’s mouth touched just seconds ago that she barely even tastes the sweet pumpkin and cardamom.

Willy’s watching Kyle with this bright, expectant expression that is so hopeful and warm it physically hurts. Kyle forces a smile and hands back the drink. “Gross.”

Willy groans and rolls her eyes. Kyle watches over her coffee cup as Willy pulls on her scarf and pompom toque, and she knows that it’s going to be a very long car ride home.

***

It’s dark when they get back, but it’s not late yet and Willy’s bursting at the seams to gush about her day with someone, so she calls Kappy and tells him to come up and play video games.

He listens without interrupting. Kappy is a weirdly good listener.

“It was just so nice and so fun? You know? It wasn’t weird, it was just nice. Like, that’s what friends are for, you know?”

“Uh huh.” He pauses the game and looks over at her. “Have you guys, like, talked yet?”

“Did you not hear me? We just spent the whole day together, obviously we talked.”

“Not what I mean.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Not even about how you guys hooked up for a while and then she dumped you when reporters found out and you pretended not to care and then didn’t talk to her for like six months?”

“Wow. That’s, um, harsh.”

“Sorry. I just think if you avoid it, it’ll blow up again.”

“No, it won’t. Why would it?”

“You know you’re not fooling anyone with this ‘we’re such great friends’ shit, right? You’re like in love with her.”

Willy hasn’t thrown up in years. Throwing up is gross and not hot. She kinda feels like she might throw up right now, though.

“I’m not in love with her. Why would you say that?”

“Dude, it’s like really fucking obvious. I’m not trying to be a dick? And if you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t bring it up again but. You talk about her all the time and you hang out like every day and your eyes get all sparkly.”

“My eyes are always sparkly.”

“More sparkly than usual.”

“Kas—”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt again. Maybe things are different, maybe not. Just talk about it, okay? Soon.”

Willy swallows hard. She doesn’t answer. Kappy looks at her a minute longer and then un-pauses the game. He leaves not long after and Willy goes to bed, but it takes her a long time to fall asleep. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Kyle laughing by the window in the café.

***

Willy waits a full three hours to answer Kyle’s _Happy Thanksgiving! _text, along with a picture of a beautifully braided and crimped apple pie held by who Willy can only assume is the infamous Grandma Dubie. She would have waited four hours, but Grandma Dubie does not seem like a woman to mess with.

Willy is only good at being petty and broody for so long, it seems.

It’s Kyle who suggests a scary movie night. Willy doesn’t super love horror movies, but really, it’s more that she’s the beautiful kind of blonde who suffers and dies in horror movies—which is personally offensive—than that she’s scared. Willy is not scared. Willy is very brave. Which is why she immediately texts back _umm yes!!!!! my place thursday i have the best tv. bring snax _

She doesn’t make the snack joke which is so obviously right in front of her, though, so maybe she’s not the most brave. Whatever. It’s fine.

***

“I know my car is only like a two-minute walk from your front door,” Kyle says, after the movie’s finally over, “but if I get murdered on my way there, it’s completely your fault. A leaf is going to fall on my head and I’m going to scream and try to kill a tree.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you think you’re leaving?” Willy hiccups. Too much wine. “Forget about you on the way to your car, there is obviously a murderer waiting to sneak in the door and kill me on your way out.”

“Always all about you, huh?”

“Kyle, no offense, but what’s more tragic? Beautiful NHL star is tragically found dead in her apartment the weekend before Halloween? Or local math nerd killed by a human shaped tree?”

“Wow. Fuck you.”

“You can’t leave now. We’re _both_ too beautiful to die, and I’m scaaaaaared.”

“Whose fault is that, Willy? Who chose this movie?”

“Kappy said it was good!”

“You have even worse judgement than I thought.”

“I’m never going to sleep again. I’ll have to just live with all of my lights on forever.”

“I don’t think I can walk outside in the dark after that,” Kyle mumbles, her face pressed into a pillow.

Willy blows a stray piece of Kyle’s hair onto her cheek just to mess with her. And yeah, okay, they’ve had a bit of wine, and Kyle maybe grabbed her hand at one of the scariest points of the movie and didn’t let go for A While. So Willy only lets herself hesitate about 2.4 seconds before she says, “Well, I guess you’re just going to have to stay here tonight then.”

Kyle removes her face from the pillow and blinks at Willy. Her glasses are all askew. Willy pushes her own hair back to avoid reaching out and fixing them.

“Um,” Kyle says. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, I really don’t want to die tonight. And also I’m still kind of drunk and probably shouldn’t drive, so.”

“Okay cool.”

Kyle nods. “Cool.”

Willy plays with the tassels on the edge of the blanket. “I guess we should probably go to bed then, huh?”

Kyle nods, looking very intensely at the tassels. “Probably, yeah.”

“Right, well, you remember where everything is.”

It’s achingly familiar, the routine of it all. The way they weave around each other in the hallway and the bathroom. The sparkly silver headband Willy uses to push her hair back to wash her face. The way Kyle walks on tiptoe in her bare feet on the cold floor. The avocado oil hand cream Kyle wears in the winter so her hands don’t dry up and crack and bleed in the cold. Willy leaving out an extra expensive silk pajama set and Kyle wrinkling her nose at it before digging through her drawers for an old t-shirt.

It’s strange too, the silence between them while they brush their teeth, close the curtains, and double check that the door is locked. There’s no music playing softly from the next room, no half-intelligible discussion of a game recap through a mouthful of toothpaste.

The tension builds to be so thick and heavy they may as well have made a pillow wall between them, Willy thinks, as they crawl into bed under her soft, silk sheets, careful to not let even a toe slip across to the other side. She isn’t used to the way the mattress settles with two people in it. She isn’t used to how warm Kyle feels next to her or the two little dents on the side of her nose when she takes off her glasses and sets them on the windowsill.

“Should probably turn the light off,” Kyle mumbles after a very long moment.

Willy isn’t sure she’s ready to face the dark and the quiet and the very little space between them just yet, but she can’t very easily explain that so she turns out the light and pulls the blankets up a little higher. Her fingertips feel all tingly and her throat has gone all tight. Kyle shifts onto her side so she and Willy are face to face in the dark, and Willy can just see the outline of her jaw, her nose, her hand holding the pillow next to her head.

_Time to make a joke_, Willy’s brain sings at her. “This was probably a pretty dumb survival plan. Now we’re both gonna end up murdered.”

“At least we’ll die together. Very tragic, very romantic,” Kyle hums. Willy can hear her smile, which doesn’t make any sense, but somehow is true. Her stomach flip flops at the word romantic.

“Like _Romeo and Juliet_?”

Kyle groans. “Jesus, how many times do I have to explain to you that _Romeo and Juliet_ is not romantic.”

“They were in _love, _Kyle.”

“They were fucking idiots, and they were fourteen. It’s a tragedy, Willy.”

“It would be a tragedy if we died, too, and you’ve called me an idiot more than once.”

“I say it with the deepest affection.”

“Which is love, right? Isn’t love the deepest affection of all?” Willy isn’t really sure what makes her say it, and as soon as she does she kind of wants to jump out of bed and go flush herself down the toilet and into an ocean abyss or something.

Kyle doesn’t answer right away. Willy might be imaging it that Kyle’s breath catches for a minute, but they’re so close that she doesn’t think she could have made it up.

“Yeah,” Kyle says after a long pause. “Yeah, I guess it probably is.”

And then Willy shifts her leg a little, because if she lies completely still for another moment she might explode, and her knee bumps against Kyle’s. And then Kyle is reaching out and brushing back a piece of Willy’s hair and it takes her a few seconds too long to move her hand away from Willy’s cheek.

Willy doesn’t really think when she reaches out and takes Kyle’s hand and laces their fingers together in the dark. She leans in just the barest amount to close the space between them, and then Willy is kissing Kyle and Kyle is kissing Willy, and she’s pulling Willy closer and cupping one hand around her neck. She tastes like mint toothpaste and and her hair is so soft when it brushes against Willy’s face. 

Willy wants to touch her everywhere, to trail her hands up her side and drop kisses on her collarbone, feel the soft skin of her thighs. But it’s not quite that kind of kissing, and that’s okay too. She rubs her thumb gently along Kyle’s jaw, kisses her long and soft and slow.

Kyle pulls back first. Her hand slips from Willy’s neck.

“Willy,” she whispers. It’s just her name, but it says so much. Too much.

“I know,” Willy mumbles. She gently pulls her hand free from Kyle’s and tugs the blankets up even higher to cover the fact that they’re shaking. She buries her mouth in the covers.

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Kyle says again, so quiet that Willy can barely hear her even though they are so, so close.

“Okay,” Willy agrees. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Willy.”

Neither of them sleeps for a very long time. They lie there in the dark under too many blankets until Willy thinks she might die from overheating. They lie there in the dark and try not to listen to each other breathing. They lie there in the dark and Willy tries to forget she has lips, which doesn’t work at all and is probably the stupidest thing ever, but it’s preferable to thinking about how a few minutes ago they were kissing Kyle and they really want to still be doing that but that will probably never happen again.

Willy wishes she could sneak away and go sleep on the couch without being a pitiful jackass. She wishes she had a fan or one of those weird sound machines that babies have for white noise. She almost even wishes she hadn’t asked Kyle to go to the bar with her that night weeks ago, because deep down, Kappy was right, and she kind of knew they would end up here again and now they’re right back at the start, except somehow, it’s worse this time. It’s worse this time because now she knows the ‘what if’ is a really bad idea and it hurts a lot, but also now there’s no more ‘what if’ to maybe be hurt by and she doesn’t really know where to go from here.

She falls asleep eventually. When she wakes up, it’s late and the sun is streaming in and Kyle is gone. There’s a note on the kitchen counter, just a short one: _Had to run, early meeting. Talk soon—Kyle. _Willy stares at it until her coffee goes cold in her hands.

***

They do talk soon, but not really, not about the kiss or Kyle sneaking out in the early morning. They talk about Kyle’s bad meeting and Willy’s amazing goal and the really great Halloween candy sales at the Loblaws near Kyle’s place.

Willy stops by Kyle’s office after practice Tuesday after the movie night incident, hands stuck in her pockets because they’re all shaky.

“Hey,” Kyle says, sounding frazzled. “Sorry I have a meeting in five minutes and I can’t find my pen.”

“You have like twelve pens on your desk.”

“Yes, but none of them are my good pen. I need my good pen.”

“Uh huh, sure. Hey um, before you go, just real quick, about the other night?”

Kyle stops shuffling papers and looks up. She looks like a deer caught in the headlights. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“Um we were drunk?”

“A little, I guess.”

“And nostalgic.”

“Very.”

“It was a spur of the moment, caught up in the feelings thing. I didn’t think it through. Doesn’t have to ruin what we’ve got here.”

“Oh,” Willy says, for what feels like the fourteenth time. “Right. What we’ve got here.”

“Yeah,” Kyle says, chewing her lip nervously. “Like we said at the bar that night, it doesn’t have to be weird between us. Things have been good. Being friends is good.”

“Very good.”

“I didn’t mean to push boundaries. I overstepped.”

“I think I kissed you?”

“I slept over.”

“Because I invited you.”

“Because I was scared to go outside.”

"Because I picked a horrible movie."

"Horror movies were my idea, though."

“This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“Right. Doesn’t matter who started it. Boundaries breached. Will not be breached again. I’m sorry for putting you in that position.” There’s something weird about her voice when she says it. It’s her business voice, her professional voice, her ‘it’s definitely on our radar and we’ll take the process one step at a time’ interview voice.

“Okay?” Willy says. She feels like a slowly deflating balloon, just kind of sinking to the floor and spluttering out.

“Okay,” Kyle nods, once, firm. “Aha! My pen. Right. Um, I really should go. Sorry.”

“Yeah. Yeah, go.” 

“Maybe we can get coffee later. One last pumpkin spice before they swap them for the winter drinks. Oh god, you’re a Merry Christmas on November first person, aren’t you?”

Willy makes herself smile. She’s standing here in the doorway of Kyle’s office, just like she was that first night weeks ago, and she’s feeling like hot garbage all over again.

***

The team Halloween party is at Mo’s because he’s the team dad without actually being a real dad. Kyle isn’t going, because she’s technically everyone’s employer and that would be weird, and also because Willy didn’t invite her because things between them are still weird and so it would be double weird.

Willy still wants to look hot, though. Willy is always hot, and a weird bout of inconvenient feelings has never stopped her sexy costume efforts before. She orders her Scoops Ahoy costume online, digs an old pair of fishnets out of her dresser, and spends about four hours making sure her hair is Perfect Sexy, even with the hat.

“You’re an ice cream lady?” Tyson asks, confused. “That’s neat.”

“Bro,” Trevor scoffs, “she’s obviously Robin from _Stranger Things_. The lesbian ice cream lady.”

“I’m not Robin, I’m _Steve_,” Willy pouts, “duh.”

‘Oh,” Trevor frowns. “Uh, yeah. Duh?”

“Hello? The hair? I famously have amazing sexy hair?”

“Oh! Sure, yeah!” Tyson pipes up. “Very sexy.”

“Bro, you can’t call her sexy, that’s like, sexist.”

“But she said sexy. Is it sexist if you said it first? I didn’t mean for it—”

Willy sighs ducks away to get another drink. She knows they mean well, but she’s just so tired. She’s barely buzzed and it’s really not cutting it tonight. Kappy and Mitch are pouring out shots in the Kitchen. Mo and Freddie watch, amused, from where they’re talking in the corner.

“Pour me one, too,” Willy says, leaning against the counter and bumping Kappy out of the way with her hip.

“Steve!” Mitch shouts, already wasted.

“Hey, cowboy. Nice boots.”

“Thanks! They’re Steph’s. I never thought they’d fit.”

“She know you’re wearing them?”

“She wouldn’t let me write Andy on the bottom, and she said if I busted the seams or broke a heel, she’d leave me and take the dog.”

“Damn, bud, that’s a lot pressure for a costume.”

“Halloween’s the most important holiday of the year,” he slurs. “Gotta take risks, you know?”

“Totally know, yeah. What are we drinking?”

“Rum,” Kappy says. “One or two?”

“Two,” Willy says, and takes both shot glasses.

“Broooo,” Mitch says, eyes lighting up. “You should do them at the _same time_!”

“Mitchell,” Willy says, “I love you, but you’re a fucking idiot, bud.”

“Cheers!” Mitch giggles.

The rum burns and it’s definitely, like, coconut flavoured or something equally disgusting but it makes her stomach feel warm and soon that spreads through her and everything gets a little brighter and softer and she doesn’t feel quite so grumpy. She’s in Mo’s nice, cozy, very adult apartment with her boys and they’re all laughing at dumb shit and Fred ruffles her hair and she beats Trevor at pool. JT shows up late in a dumb but still sexy fireman costume and spends an entire hour showing everyone about a million pictures of his super cute baby in a dalmatian fire dog onesie. It’s probably the most emotion Willy’s ever seen from the guy, and it makes her heart go all soft. Which is nice, except that when her heart goes happy soft and starts to go sad soft which she had been trying very hard to avoid.

“Willy?” Zach says, taking the seat next to her on the couch.

“Hi.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look okay.”

“I look great?”

Zach rolls his eyes. “You look sad.”

“I am sad,” she sighs, sinking further into the pillows and sprawling across the couch. She kicks her feet up onto his lap and he rests his arms on her legs.

“Is this about Kyle?”

“You know about that? That we’re friends?”

“Hmm. Friends, yeah, I know about that.”

Willy frowns. “Did you talk to Kappy?”

“I try not to believe anything I hear from Kappy. It wasn’t hard to figure out, though. You two have been hanging out a lot. You were pretty weird when you ran into her after practice yesterday, though. And you seem sad. You’re not usually sad.”

“I don’t like being sad.”

“Who does?”

“Auston. He thrives on it. It’s his_ aesthetic _or whatever. Sad Boy, Grumpy Boy, blah blah.”

“Willy.”

“It’s just,” she sighs, letting her arm flop over the side, “I thought it would be fine, you know? I thought I could handle it.”

Zach sighs. “We’ve been here before, you know.”

She gives him a sharp look. They had been here before, back one night in the summer at a goodbye party for Naz and Patty and all the other guys they lost. She was drunk and sappy and her stomach felt weird from saying goodbye so much. Zach had seen some obvious look on her face and taken her phone before she could text Kyle. And Willy’s drunk texted plenty of exes before and it’s never not worked out for her, but Zach had given her a firm look, only a little bit pitying. _This is different, Willy, don’t put yourself through this again. _

Zach is giving her the same look now. “Listen, Will,” he sighs, the way he does before a Wise Zach speech. “I’m not going to pretend I know at all what it’s like to be you or Kyle—to be a woman in the NHL. I have no idea, but I can imagine it must be incredibly difficult and frustrating and probably really demoralizing a lot of the time. It makes sense that you guys would turn to each other for support. But that doesn’t really seem like that’s all that’s going on here.”

“I thought maybe it could be this time,” Willy mumbles. “I like having friends who are girls. I like her.”

“I know, but it’s clearly more complicated than that.”

“Not to Kyle. I think it’s pretty uncomplicated to her. She just puts on her business voice and it’s like nothing ever happened.”

Zach gives her a pained look. “Have you ever considered that might be a defense mechanism?”

Willy blinks slowly. “Huh?”

“You know,” Zach shrugs, “like your thing is you kind of overcompensate positivity? You don’t want things to be weird or uncomfortable so you get even more friendly so people don’t think you’re upset.”

“Umm,” Willy frowns. “Do you charge by the hour for these therapy sessions, Zach, or do I get a free trial first?”

“I’m not trying to psychoanalyze you,” he says, “but you guys have clearly got some stuff to deal with it and you’re both just ignoring it in different ways. Maybe it is different this time; maybe things have changed. Or maybe you guys can be just friends, I don’t know. But one of you needs to say something, or this is going to end up just like last time.”

He stands and checks his watch. “I should head out. You going to be okay?”

Willy’s mouth feels very dry. “What if it’s not different this time?”

Zach reaches out and dips her hat over her eyes. “Then at least you know.”

She stays on the couch and watches him go. The buzz from the shots is fading and everything feels a little heavier, a little more dull. She pulls up the number for a cab on her phone and dials before she can change her mind.

***

Kyle’s street is mostly dark, but there are still a few lights on through her window. It’s started to rain and she ducks under the porch awning, huddling in her too thin jean jacket over her costume while she waits.

When Kyle opens the door, she gawks at Willy for a second. Willy feels a spike of satisfaction through her stomach-churning nerves when Kyle’s eyes drop to her legs for moment and then back to her face, eyes a little bit wider than when she first opened the door.

“Trick or treat?”

Kyle laughs awkwardly. “You must be freezing, come inside.”

The house is warm and bright and smells like a cozy fire, although Willy doesn’t see a fireplace, so it must be a candle.

“Why aren’t you at the party?” Kyle asks, closing the door behind her.

“I was. Just came from there.”

“Oh. Wasn’t any fun?”

“No, it was all right. I was uhh hanging out with Zach and he’s all wise and smart and shit, so.”

“That’s Zach, yeah.”

Willy bobs her head awkwardly. “Yeah and we were talking and I sort of realized that maybe I should actually not be at Mo’s talking to Zach but here talking to you. So I came here. To talk to you.”

“Oh?” Kyle sounds a little surprised, but mostly nervous. She pulls at a tangled spot in her hair.

“I hope that’s okay?”

“Totally okay! I’m glad you came.”

“Good,” Willy says. “Okay, um, I haven’t really rehearsed this so it’s probably not going to be very elegant but, I’m just going to say it.” She takes a deep breath. “So, I like you? A lot. I think maybe you already know that, but I do. As a person and a friend because you’re really cool and smart and fun. But also as more than that, because I really liked kissing you the other night, and also all the times before then even though we don’t talk about it. I know that’s kind of an unspoken rule between us but I think it’s a bad rule. I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen, you and me. Because it did happen and ignoring things isn’t good usually and also because I kind of want it to happen again. Not the shitty parts, but the good parts, those I really want to happen again.”

“Willy—”

“Wait, please, just let me finish. I don’t even know how to tell you how nice it is to be able to have you, like, in my life, and to have that kind of support in our jobs and lives. I wish I did because it means so much to me, but also I feel like you understand, so I guess it’s okay.”

“I do understand,” Kyle says, quiet but serious. “It means a lot to me, too.”

“Good! That’s good. It’s just that, I don’t know if that’s enough for me anymore? Maybe it’s selfish or dumb to risk losing that when it’s so important to both of us, but there are so many other things about this and you that are just as important to me. I don’t know if I’m like, in love with you? But I think I’m definitely close, and I don’t think I can pretend not to be anymore.” She says the last part all in a rush and she feels weirdly out of breath. “Um. Yeah. That’s it, I guess. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

Kyle’s eyes are as big as the moon looking at her. “You—you love me?”

“Maybe? Something like that. Yeah.”

“You want to do this again. For real, this time.” Her low, serious voice is a little shaky. Willy’s never heard her sound so nervous.

“Yeah. If you want? And if you don’t, like, no worries, obviously! It’s totally fine and I get it and I’m not gonna like mope and sulk and never talk to you again, I just—” And Willy maybe should have seen it coming given that she’s standing in Kyle’s front hall telling her all these feelings, but she’s so surprised when Kyle kisses her that it takes her a moment to realize what’s happening.

Kyle draws back, unsure.

“Um. Okay,” Willy says, her voice higher than usual. “Cool, so, it’s not just me then?”

“Not just you.”

“Okay,” she squeaks. “Yeah, okay, great. Come here.” She pulls Kyle back in and they’re kissing again, different than the last time, after the movie in Willy’s bed. It’s not slow and sweet this time, it’s faster, more urgent, hands tugging at belt loops and Kyle backing Willy up against the wall. She tastes like sour skittles.

Kyle’s hands settle on Willy’s waist, fingers playing with the hem of her shirt, untucking it from her skirt and slipping her hands underneath the fabric. Her touch makes Willy feel like she’s melting inside.

“You still have a bedroom, right?” She mumbles against Kyle’s mouth.

“You wanna go check?”

“Yes, please.”

Kyle laughs and slowly backs down the hall, taking Willy with her. Her room looks just like Willy remembers it: surprisingly messy, books stacked absolutely everywhere, navy sheets a tangled mess, framed art perfectly level on the walls, coffee-stained newspaper open on the desk.

“This is a really cute costume,” Kyle says, taking in the chips ahoy outfit. “Can I take it off now, though?”

“Fine by me,” Willy hums happily, chasing Kyle’s mouth and walking them back towards the bed. Kyle finds the zipper of her skirt and Willy steps out of it, holding tight to Kyle’s shoulders for balance.

“I don’t remember the fishnets in the show.”

“Well, I had to make it sexy somehow, Kyle.”

“Effective strategy.”

“Mmm business talk, that’s hot.”

“God, Willy.”

She slides her hands from Willy’s hips to her thighs, nudging her back onto the bed and straddling her waist. Willy lets out a quiet moan and the sound makes Kyle smile against her mouth. She drags her hands down Kyle’s arms and Kyle pushes Willy’s shirt up, lets her hands wander, creeping higher and higher, teasing. She stops just before she gets there, pulls back a bit. Willy grabs her hand and goes to draw it back to where she wants it, but Kyle pulls her up so they’re sitting in each other’s laps. She tugs at Willy’s shirt with her other hand.

“Take it off,” she says.

“Bossy,” Willy smirks. She bites at Kyle’s bottom lip before pulling back to peel off the tank top.

“Cute bra,” Kyle says, her fingers tracing over the lace trim.

“What, this old thing?” she says, a little breathless. “Went with the outfit.”

“What outfit?” Kyle teases, pressing quick, playful kisses to the corners of Willy’s mouth and along her jaw. She fiddles with one of the straps, running a finger underneath the lining, inching her way towards the clasp, slow, agonizingly slow.

“Kyle, you’re killing me,” Willy whines.

Kyle kisses her gently, rubs her thumb along her jaw. She unhooks the bra and slips it off easily. Willy tugs Kyle’s t-shirt up over her head, not super gracefully, but whatever. She’s not wearing a bra underneath. Willy takes a minute to just look at her, half in the shadow from the thin moonlight coming in through the curtain. She traces a finger along her collarbone, leans in to plant soft kisses across her chest.

“You’re really beautiful,” she whispers. Even in the dark, Kyle blushes.

Their kisses turn sloppy and more desperate as Kyle drags the fishnets down Willy’s thighs and dips a hand into her underwear. Willy’s breath catches; she arches up into Kyle’s touch.

“That good?”

“Yeah, fuck. Just-keep going.”

Kyle works her fingers in slow circles. She tears her mouth away from Willy’s to suck a bruise on her neck. Willy’s breath is shaky, uneven. She lets herself sink back into the pillows and Kyle’s touch, lets herself get lost in it all.

Kyle kisses her when she comes, holds her close. Her legs tremble as Kyle draws back, shifting a little to lie next to her.

“Was that okay?”.

Willy lets out a shaky laugh. “Uhh, yeah, that was amazing.”

“It’s been a while,” Kyle says. “I forgot how good this was, you and me.”

“Maybe I can remind you some more.” 

“Maybe later?” Kyle says. “Maybe we could just stay like this for a while.”

Willy smiles and moves closer, tucking herself more firmly under Kyle’s arm, tangling their legs under the covers. “Of course. If you’re sure.”

“Does your lip balm have honey in it?” Kyle asks after a moment.

Willy giggles sleepily. “Uh huh. Very moisturizing.”

Kyle hums, just as sleepy. “It’s nice.”

“This is nice.”

“Yeah,” Kyle agrees. “Are you staying? Can you sleep like this?”

Willy’s not sure, partly because she’s probably the most restless sleeper on the planet and can’t stay in any one sleep position for too long. But also partly because even though her brain is fuzzy with sleep, her whole body is alive and buzzing at being so close to Kyle. But Kyle loves to cuddle; it’s one of Willy’s favourite things about her. She’s all numbers and hard facts and practical, not big on kissing in public, and she needs her space, like a lot of it. But she’s also a huge teddy bear and nothing makes her happier than being wrapped up in a blanket, legs and arms tangled, noses touching just like this, holding each other until she starts doing her weird little hiccup sounds which means she’s asleep.

And Willy’s missed this. A lot. It doesn’t feel real that she’s here in Kyle’s bed, but she’s even less sure of what will happen in the morning, and for right now she just wants to hold on to this. So she snuggles closer and says, “Yeah, sleep. We can stay like this as long as you want.”

***

Willy wakes up with bright morning light coming in the windows and Kyle’s nose pressed against the back of her neck, her knees tucked neatly behind Willy’s, one arm slung loosely over her waist. It’s warm and cozy and Willy would probably fall right back to sleep if she didn’t have to pee so badly. She slips carefully out from Kyle’s arm and sneaks to the bathroom. When she gets back, Kyle is awake and scrolling through something on her phone. Willy climbs back under the covers and snatches the phone out of Kyle’s hand, tossing it aside.

“Hey,” she says, only a little indignant.

“No math before breakfast.”

Kyle rolls her eyes. “It was twitter.”

“That’s worse.” Willy kisses her, sinking back into the pillows and blankets and Kyle’s arms. Her hair is messy and her arms are marked with weird patterns from where the embroidered quilt dug into her skin, and both of them probably have morning breath, but the sun is warm shining in on them, and Kyle can’t stop smiling against her mouth, and Willy finds her hand under the covers and their fingers twist together.

“Good morning,” Willy murmurs against Kyle’s neck, kissing slowly down her jaw, her breasts, her stomach. She presses soft kisses on her hip bones, nips playfully at the inside of her thighs.

Kyle doesn’t have pancake mix or eggs or anything really for a fancy breakfast, so they eat oatmeal with cinnamon on the couch and pretend to watch some antiques show, sneaking glances and kisses until their lips are swollen and sticky with maple syrup. It’s probably the best Friday morning of Willy’s life.

***

It’s days turned into weeks of breakfast dates and staying over at Kyle’s, falling asleep together halfway through _It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown _after a game. It’s sitting under a tree in a park, watching the leaves fall around them, Willy playing with Kyle’s hair while Kyle reads to her from a Mary Oliver collection. It’s making out in Kyle’s office after practice, and the two of them fucking up six different cookie recipes before caving and buying a box of the discounted, leftover Pillsbury ghost cookies, and then burning those too but eating every single one of them anyway.

It’s quiet and comfortable and it’s just the two of them in their own little bubble, until it isn’t anymore.

She maybe should have known that it was all too good to be true. She maybe should have known they couldn’t stay in that quiet, private bubble forever. She maybe should have known people would be paying attention, that there would pictures and tweets and reporters asking questions, Kyle getting called into a million HR meetings, curious looks from the guys at practice, and things spat across the ice at her from the other bench that make Willy want to just curl up and cry. She maybe should have known, by now and after everything, that she couldn’t keep ignoring Zach and Kappy and the quiet pestering voice in the back of her head whispering that things weren’t quite settled yet.

Willy knows that they probably need to talk. She notices Kyle watching her carefully sometimes, notices her sharp little breaths when she seems about to say something and then changes her mind. She notices the tightness around them, creeping in slowly through the cracks in the windows and suffocating them into silence. Willy maybe doesn’t know a lot about life outside hockey and clothes and where to find the best ice cream in Toronto and most American states, but she does know about balance, and she knows that the newfound balance between her and Kyle is slipping fast.

But they’re subtle, the changes, and Willy’s not great at subtle. She’s big gestures and loud feelings and thinking too fast. She doesn’t know how to take the darkening circles under Kyle’s eyes, or their second cancelled date of the week, or the way Kyle turns the music up in the car after games to break through the quiet, and turn those things into a question. _What are we doing? Are you okay? I’m scared, too. Give me some words because I don’t know which ones to use. Please don’t leave again. _

Willy’s heart lurches every time she gets a text. She takes longer and longer to form a convincing, cheerful response, and eventually she shoves her phone under a pile of blankets out of sight. She deletes her Twitter—something she probably should have done years ago—and turns off the comments on her Instagram. She throws herself into hockey and upcoming holiday charities, drowns out headlines and commentary. She’s tired and jittery and restless. Kyle is tired and quiet and short. 

She should have seen it coming. Maybe she kind of did. She sees it brewing like a storm on the horizon. Willy’s never liked thunderstorms. She stands on the beach and watches it roll in, and then she hides and waits for it to hit.

***

They’re making soup in Willy’s kitchen when Kyle abruptly turns off the food processor mid-puree.

“It’s not done yet,” Willy says. “There’s still chunks. I don’t want chunky soup, Kyle, gross.”

“Just leave the soup for a minute, Willy.” Her voice is hesitant and it makes Willy’s throat go all tight. Her eyes feel prickly for no reason and she bites her tongue hard until the threat of them welling up passes.

Kyle takes her hands, rubs her thumbs across Willy’s knuckles. “Something’s not right here.”

Willy tries to swallow the lump in her throat to speak, but she can’t so she just nods. She nods until her head feels wobbly. Kyle’s eyes are wide and warm in the kitchen light, but they’re worried too. Willy doesn’t like when her eyes look worried. Kyle has perfect smiling eyes, and she wishes they were smiling now.

“You don’t seem happy.”

“Of course I’m happy.” Willy’s never been a very good liar.

“Willy,” Kyle says, so, so quiet. She tries to brush away the hot tears that are sliding down Willy’s cheeks, but Willy turns away. Her cheeks burn and her stomach is writhing. She feels like there’s little bugs crawling all over skin, itchy and sharp. She wants to crawl away somewhere dark and small where no one can see her like this.

“Please talk to me.”

“Why do I always have to be the one to talk,” Willy snaps. The anger bubbles up in her stomach before she can stop it. She turns back around, but Kyle’s shocked expression only makes her angrier. 

“What?”

“Why do I always have to be the one to say these things?” Willy continues. “You’re the one who’s good at words.”

“Okay, wait a minute,” Kyle says defensively. “I’m literally asking you right now to tell me what’s wrong—something clearly is—because you’ve barely spoken to me all week and I have no idea what it is. I’ve obviously done something wrong—”

“You haven’t done anything.”

“Then what is it?”

“That you haven’t done anything.”

Kyle blinks. “I don’t understand.”

“I came to your house on Halloween and I said all those things and you didn’t really say anything back. And that was fine because I thought you would say them later, but you never did. And now you want to talk but somehow it’s still my turn to say things?”

Irritation flickers across Kyle’s face. “You’ve been mad at me all week because you wanted to talk about this, but instead of telling me that you just shut me out. Is that what you’re telling me? Because—”

“So it’s my fault?”

“That’s not what I said. If you’d stop interrupting me then we could take a step back and just look at this—”

“God, stop talking to me like I’m one your staff, this isn’t a business meeting.”

“Okay, Willy, please, I’m trying to understand here. I thought we were on the same page. Where is this coming from?” Kyle’s voice is pleading now. She sounds close to tears. Willy’s never seen her cry before, and she doesn’t want to now. She’s so, so mad, but if Kyle starts crying, she thinks it might break her.

“I can’t go through this ending all over again. I can’t do the sitting by and watching you slowly disappear and pretending it’s all fine and then—”

“What disappearing? What ending? Willy, we’re not—”

“You just cut me out. You told me we’d be fine, that it would hard but it would be okay, and then you got distant and then you were gone, and I just had to be okay with it. I didn’t get a say. But I’m not okay with it. I’m really not okay with it, and I don’t want to do that again, but it’s already happening and I don’t know how to stop it.”

Kyle stares at her. She’s still holding Willy’s hands but she drops them now.

“I—I don’t know what else I was supposed to do?” Kyle says. “Last time I just—it was so much harder than I thought, and I didn’t know what to do about it. People were saying really horrible things about you, and I’m basically your boss, and there were so many things we couldn’t control. I didn’t know how to make it less hard and I knew we’d end up, well, here, I guess. I knew we’d end up right here like this. I didn’t want this.”

Willy feels like she’s just been thrown into the boards: she’s suddenly dizzy and confused and she wraps her arms around her stomach to stop the hurting but it just gets worse. Her eyes are blurry from crying. She squishes her eyes shut to block out the wobbly image of Kyle standing helpless in front of her.

“Okay. Can you maybe go now, please?” Willy whispers.

“Willy—”

“No, I think I need to be alone now, please. I’ll call you. This week when we’re on the road or something. I just need—I can’t right now.”

There’s a pause so long that Willy wonders if Kyle’s already gone, but then she says, “Okay. I’m sorry.” A moment later Willy hears the door open and close. The Kitchen is silent except for Willy’s shaky breathing and the sizzling of tomatoes and garlic on the stove.

Willy keeps her eyes shut and her arms wrapped tight around herself as she sinks to the floor against the cabinets. She stays that way until the soup starts to burn.

***

They leave for Pittsburgh the next morning. Kappy doesn't say anything about her puffy eyes on the flight, just offers her his sleep mask and one of his AirPods. Willy turns her phone off and shoves it to the bottom of her bag. She doesn’t call Kyle like she said she would, just texts her once, a few days later, to say she needs some time away and she’ll call her when they’re back in Toronto. Kyle doesn’t answer. 

She doesn’t cry anymore. She plays really good hockey and goes out with the guys. She laughs where she’s supposed to and even smiles for real a few times. She falls asleep the second her head hits the pillow and she tells herself everything’s going to be okay.

***

Things were bad enough before she gets hit, hard, in their home game against Buffalo. There’s only six minutes left in the third and her knee really fucking hurts, so she doesn’t protest when they tell her she’s out for the rest of the game. They lose, because of course they do. Willy’s never really been one for physical anger, but she’s never wanted to hit something so bad in her life. She settles for slamming a few doors on her way to the medic’s office.

She tells Kappy to leave without her and she’ll get an Uber when they’re done checking her knee for the fourth time. It’s their first home game after their longest roadie of the season, and Kappy hasn’t shut up about seeing his girlfriend since they landed in Toronto the night before. To his credit, he does seem genuinely conflicted, but he doesn’t ask twice when Willy waves him off.

“Seriously dude, go. It might be a while. I’m good.”

When he’s gone, Willy leans back and closes her eyes. She tries to ignore the dull throbbing in her knee, which is finally starting to fade but still really fucking hurts. She tries not to think about Kappy and all the other guys who wouldn’t be going home to an empty apartment tonight.

Willy’s phone buzzes and she groans and flops her arm around, trying to find the phone on the chair beside her. There’s a bunch of texts from her parents and sisters, about fourteen from Alex who must have been watching live, and a new text from Pasta. 

_Bad hit yikes_ 😬_ does ur leg bone stick out like the lady from the doctor show? _

Willy rolls her eyes and huffs out a breath, making her sweaty hair flop down into her face even more.

_I cant believe ur still watching greys anatomy its not even good anymore  
& im fine btw its not as bad as it looks theyre just being dramatic _

Pasta’s reply comes in about six seconds because he has literally zero chill, like less than Willy even, which is saying something.

_U love the drama  
Ur girl not so much _

Willy frowns at her phone. Taylor, the physiotherapist, comes into the room and starts doing all sorts of weird stretches to her knee. She tells Willy to just relax so she stays flopped and frowning at her phone.

_??? _

Little typing dots appear right away.

_Dubas  
U did not see her face?_

Willy had, in fact, seen Kyle’s face because everyone had seen Kyle’s face. The cameras had flipped back and forth from Willy down on the ice to Kyle gripping the handrail of the management box, her expression far from her usual neutral business expression. But that was another thing Willy was trying very hard to Not Think About.

_Shes GM. Its literally her job to be worried if any of us get hurt. Gotta protect the investment or whatever. _

Pasta’s typing dots appear and disappear several times for almost a minute before he replies.

_I luv u but u are dumb idiot u know? _

Which, rude. Willy is literally injured right now, even if Taylor just said that there doesn’t appear to be serious damage and she should just go home and ice it. She is _injured _and she doesn’t need this kind of negativity.

She’s suddenly bone tired and while her empty apartment isn’t the most appealing thing in the world, her expensive goose feather pillows are soft as fuck and sleep means she doesn’t have to keep thinking about Pasta’s text or Kyle’s face.

“Do you have a ride?” Taylor asks her. “Driving might be difficult.”

Willy waves her phone absently. “Yeah, I’m good, thanks.”

Taylor leaves. Willy’s just about to order the car when someone clears their throat in the doorway. She looks up and her stomach does that flip flop feeling that Willy really thought was bullshit until she met Kyle, and now here she is hovering awkwardly in the door frame, hands jammed into her pockets, her mouth pressed together in a tight line.

“Hey,” she says, pushing off the door frame and moving towards Willy. “How’s the knee looking?”

Willy swallows. She shrugs. “Fine. No real damage, just need to ice it. Should be good for Philly.”

Kyle nods. Willy waits. Kyle clears her throat. “You uh, sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I mean I just said—”

“Right, right of course.”

“You can ask Taylor if you don’t—”

“I believe you, Willy, it just looked like a bad hit.”

Willy’s shoulders go up and down again. “Could have been worse.”

“Still.”

Willy waits some more but Kyle doesn’t seem to have as many words as she usually does.

“I should probably get home. Ice or whatever,” Willy mumbles. She wonders suddenly if she has an ice machine in her freezer. That’s something she should know probably. In movies people always use bags of frozen vegetables, but Willy definitely doesn’t have any of those, not since John went on his whole rant about fresh organic produce on the flight home from Detroit earlier in the season.

Kyle runs a hand through her hair and adjusts her glasses. “Yeah, right, of course. You’re not driving, are you?”

“Kappy drove me.”

“Thought I saw Kappy leave a while ago?”

“Told him not to wait. I’ll get an Uber.”

“I’ll drive you.”

Willy’s wobbles again. “No, it’s fine. I’ve already—”

“It’s on my way.”

“It definitely isn’t.”

“Maybe not,” Kyle admits, and there’s a hint of her smile; her eyes get a little softer at least. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll still drive you.”

“You really don’t have to,” she insists, and it’s maybe a little harsher than she means it to be. Kyle’s face falls a little and she looks down at her shoes for minute. 

“I know I don’t have to,” Kyle says quietly after a minute, “but I’d like to.”

Willy bites her lip. The room feels very, very small with just the two of them in it. “Okay,” she says, before she can really overthink it. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Great,” Kyle says. “Do you uh…” she looks to Willy’s knee.

“Nah, I’m good,” she says. She slides off the counter and winces as she puts weight on her right leg. Kyle reaches out a hand, instinct maybe, but Willy ignores it. “I’m fine,” she says, firm.

Kyle insists on carrying Willy’s gear and she doesn’t argue. She slides carefully into the passenger seat while Kyle swings the bag into the trunk. The parking garage is almost empty now, Kyle’s car one of only about six left in the lot. It’s quiet and echoey and it all feels like a lot, sitting there in the dark as Kyle gets in next to her.

“You gonna start the car or should I get out and start pushing?” Willy asks after a long moment where Kyle just sits there, one hand on the wheel, staring out the windshield like they’re on a long country road at sunset and not the sublevel of a parking garage.

“You scared me tonight. When you got hit.”

“I told you I’m fine. I’ll be good to play next game it’s—”

“I’m not worried about your stats or you missing games, Willy,” Kyle looks over. She looks a mixture of bewildered and hurt.

“Oh.” A pause. “It was just my knee. I wasn’t, like, gonna die or have my brains spill out on the ice.”

Kyle huffs out a laugh. “Have you ever had one serious conversation in your life?”

“No fun in that.”

Willy is both relieved and disappointed when Kyle starts the car and drives slowly out of the garage. Some folk band Kyle likes plays quietly on the radio. They’re several blocks from the arena, stopped at a red light when Kyle says, “I owe you an apology.”

Willy shifts in her seat, pretends she’s adjusting her knee. “For what?” she mumbles.

“All of it,” Kyle says. “You were right, I probably couldn’t have handled things worse if I tried. The reporters, the stress, you and me, that conversation—both conversations, really. I’m surprised you still even wanted to talk to me after last spring.”

“I didn’t really have much of a choice,” Willy points out, “we do kind of work together.” Kyle’s wince is impossible to miss. “That’s not what I meant,” she clarifies. “I don’t still talk to you just because I have to. I—I like talking to you. Duh.”

Kyle’s mouth is a very tight, thin line. It’s a weird look for her. Willy is familiar with most of Kyle’s expressions and moods by now. She knows her serious business look just like the rest of the world, knows her polite business smile and laugh, knows her real smile and laugh, knows how she looks when she’s asleep or first thing in the morning when Willy pulls the curtain and lets the sunlight in. Knows how she looks when she’s angry or frustrated or nervous. Knows how she looks when she’s focused on a book or particularly tricky crossword, when she’s tired, when she’s relaxed. She also knows how Kyle looks when she’s really upset, and it looks just like this, here in the faint red glow of the traffic light and the thin streaks of rain that’s starting falling against the car windows.

“I like talking to you too, Willy.”

Willy hesitates, because more than anything, this feels like a moment, The Moment. It’s dramatic maybe, but she’s imagined this scenario about a thousand times in a hundred different ways, and logically, it should have already happened by now—they’ve had a hundred opportunities. She has a million different replies, questions, speeches prepared for this moment. Kappy once caught her practicing it in front of the mirror and had given Willy the most pitiful look she’d ever seen. Now she’s not really sure if she can make herself speak. They’re back in her kitchen all over again.

The light turns green. They don’t say anything the rest of the drive. The music stays on low and Willy keeps her eyes stuck out the window, watching the raindrops hit the glass and slide slowly all the way to bottom.

Kyle pulls over in front of Willy’s building and puts the car in park. It’s quiet; the street is mostly empty, only a few cars passing and the odd person running through the rain with a jacket held over their head.

“Thanks,” Willy mumbles. “For driving me, I mean.”

“Anytime,” Kyle answers. She’s drumming her fingers on the steering wheel and looking straight out the windshield. Her expression hasn’t changed since that red light. Willy knows that this is where she should undo her seat belt and get out of the car, say thanks again and go upstairs and turn off her phone and hide it somewhere so she can’t make any bad choices. She doesn’t move. 

Kyle looks over. Her eyebrows are scrunched together which makes her glasses slip down her nose a little. Willy stares at a piece of lint on Kyle’s jacket, tempted to reach out and brush it away. She doesn't.

“Willy?” Kyle says it like a question.

“I think I need to say something, too. If it's not too late to do that.”

Relief washes over Kyle’s face. “Okay,” she says softly, and then turns the car off, windshield wipers frozen midway across the glass.

Willy lets out a breath. “It, um, might take me a minute.”

“That’s okay,” Kyle tells her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Willy twists her hands in her lap and counts the raindrops on the windshield until she feels like she remembers how to breathe properly and the words are sitting right on her tongue.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you the other night. That wasn’t fair.”

“It’s okay. I understand why you were upset.”

“I think I just—you and me, we talk a lot, right? To each other and just in general. But with feelings, we don’t usually get to do that, I guess. We’re kind of told not to. Or we at least feel like we can’t. Which makes this, us, hard sometimes. Right?”

“Right,” Kyle says, nodding earnestly. “I think I’m so used to not being able to show them that I think sometimes I forget that there are people who do want to know my feelings.”

“I do,” Willy says. “I do want to know them, and I want to tell you mine. I just don’t know how to do it very well, and so they like, bottle up? And then I don’t know what to do with them and it’s overwhelming and I kind of just explode. Which isn’t great.”

“Not so great, no, but I understand. Talking around feelings like a powerpoint presentation isn't so great, either, but here I am.”

“You said before it’s a bad situation, and I didn’t really get what you were saying at the time, but I think I do now?”

“We’re just surrounded by people who both don’t want us to have any feelings, but also they do want us to have feelings so then they can say we have too many of them," Kyle explains. "It’s a lose-lose situation. We can’t win. That’s what I meant.”

“I still don’t like how things ended before,” Willy says. “It felt like you were just making a decision without including me in it at all. I didn’t know what was going on or how to fix it. When you didn’t really say anything after Halloween, it felt like that all over again. But then I guess by not talking to you about it I kind of did the same thing. Sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have left you hanging like that,” Kyle says. “It’s hard to talk about feelings when we're usually on feelings-reject auto-pilot, but I don’t want you to feel like I’m shutting you out. We need to stop pushing each other away, the rest of the world is doing a good enough job of that without our help.”

“So...” Willy says tentatively, “you’re not going to leave again then?”

“Not unless you want me to? I don’t want to. It’ll probably be hard for a bit, with media and everything, but I don’t want that to get in the way of what we already know is so good. This all started again because we wanted someone to talk to about this stuff, someone who would really understand. If we can do that again, we can do this. I want to do this. With you.”

“I’d like that,” Willy says, a small smile peaking through.

“Good,” Kyle says, obviously relieved, “because I think I probably maybe love you too.”

The heavy weight in Willy’s stomach lifts and is replaced with twirling feathers. “That’s a pretty good start for talking about feelings.”

“It’s only up from here.”

They sit quietly together for a moment, watching the street lights flicker. “I should probably go,” Willy says. “We leave for Philly in the morning.”

“Right,” Kyle nods.

“But this was good. I’ll call you when we’re back?”

“I’ll be here.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Kyle.”

“Goodnight, Willy.” She kisses her forehead, just once, hold her lips against the crease of Willy’s brow until all of the remaining tension around her temples dissolves.

***

Kyle is waiting under their old maple tree in High Park when Willy meets her there early in the morning. She’s in a big puffy coat and hand-knitted mittens. Willy wonders if her grandma made them for her.

They sit on the bench they sat on during their walk with Zeus in October. They huddle close to keep warm, legs pressed together, sipping coffee and sharing pastries from a bakery nearby. Willy kisses the cold tip of Kyle’s nose and lays her head on her shoulder.

“It’s snowing,” Kyle laughs, catching a few of the tiny flakes on her mitten.

“It’s freezing,” Willy mumbles against Kyle’s scarf, which is actually Willy's scarf.

“You love the snow.”

“Only if there’s enough for snow angels.”

“You want to go to my place? I’ll make a fire.”

“That’s very sexy lumberjack of you, Kyle.”

“Whatever you’re into, babe.”

“I can’t believe fall is over,” Willy sighs, a little bit sad.

“Best season is always the shortest.”

“It was pretty fun, though, even if we didn’t get to a Halloween craft club." 

Kyle laughs. She looks all aglow with her rosy cheeks and snowflakes caught in her hair and eyelashes. "Put it on the list for next year."

The morning is absolutely freezing, but Willy feels warm from her nose to her toes. 

**Author's Note:**

> I yell about hockey [here](https://gabithagrumbles.tumblr.com/)


End file.
